President's Report - Winter 2020 - CCI Manitoba Chapter

Article from Volume 7, Issue Number 1, 2020

President's Report - Winter 2020

By Maureen Hancharyk | Other articles by Maureen Hancharyk | Regular Column

Another very busy season for the CCI Board of Directors as we grapple with the many issues facing the condominium community.

There are always the day-to-day issues that members of CCI as well as the public come to us about as they look for advice or assistance. Most times, we are able to help them or at least point them in the right direction. Other times we encourage them to seek legal advice, contact their Board of Directors and/or their Property Manager.

As well, we offer our monthly Lunch and Learns, which are a tremendous benefit to condominium owners, condominium Board Directors and others who work in the condominium industry. The topics are always timely and address emerging and ongoing issues. These workshops are open to everyone and I encourage anyone reading this to attend. The workshops are listed on our website.

The big issue that we are grappling with at the moment is the budget proposal going to city council, that will eliminate garbage collection by the City of Winnipeg at multifamily dwellings and of course, that includes condominium corporations.

We have, as much as possible tried to encourage condominium owners to contact the Mayor and their City Councillor to protest this, as I call it, “ridiculous proposal.” Many owners have done so but one of the problems we encounter when reaching out to condominium owners is that we have very few unit owners email addresses. We are looking at various ways to improve our ability to reach out to owners directly.

In the meantime, we rely on Property Managers to communicate our message. Property Managers have a lot of responsibility and put in many hours looking after their respective condominium corporations and so their assistance to CCI is very valued and much appreciated. We can’t thank them enough.

Our CCI Board of Directors is discussing ways that we can assist them in terms of possible workshops we might offer exclusively for Property Managers and as well, ways in which we can show our genuine appreciation for helping us be an effective organization and to grow our membership.

But, back to the “garbage issue”. The owners that have been emailing their City Councillors are by and large reporting favourable outcomes. Unfortunately, some councillors were not even aware of what this proposal might mean to condominium owners and so some of those emails were very informative to city councillors as well.

Some condominium owners have written letters to the editor in our daily newspapers and CCI has reached out to the media as well. The Canadian Condominium Institute, Manitoba Chapter leads the condominium industry in Manitoba by providing education, information, awareness and access to expertise by and for our members. We are making efforts to ensure that when there is a breaking news story on a condominium issue, we are the “go to” organization that the media contacts.

The CCI Board of Directors will be making a presentation to the City of Winnipeg Waste and Environment Committee as well as the Executive Policy Committee on March 18th and March 19th.

You will find other articles in this newsletter on the subject, so I will leave it at that, except to say how inspired I am by the CCI Board of Directors, all volunteers who have worked tirelessly on this issue. It has been at least three months so far of extensive research, reaching out and putting in countless hours. Everyone has contributed a lot but I know that they will not feel slighted if I single out one of our newest Board members, Alan Forbes who has gone above and beyond as he seems to do on whatever he tackles. Bravo Alan. Thank you so much on behalf of all our CCI members and on behalf of all condominium owners. A job well done.

On that note, I will sign off for now. I hope you enjoy our newsletter, as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.

It is nearing the end of February as I write this and I believe we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Spring is just around the corner. On that note, I wish you warmth, blue skies and sunshine. Until next time.

MAUREEN HANCHARYK, President Manitoba Chapter